


Catalyst

by Honey_Badger001



Series: Walls of the Heartland Divine [1]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alcohol Abuse, Bad Parenting, Childhood, Dark, M/M, Modern AU, Oneshot, Running away from home, Short work, Unrequited Love, jealous Bert, this is not a very happy fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-06
Updated: 2017-06-06
Packaged: 2018-11-09 23:01:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11114712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Honey_Badger001/pseuds/Honey_Badger001
Summary: Reiner used to be Bertholdt's. House just down the street, they spent their childhood together. Until Marcel came in a whirlwind and swept Reiner away... And changed all their lives forever.





	Catalyst

**Author's Note:**

> [one shot] Please give feedback, I love everyone!
> 
> UPDATE, 22nd Nov 2017: THIS WORK NOW HAS A SEQUEL, I FINALLY DID IT!!!

His house was just down the street. Bert's mom told him that it was about 400 meters. That's once around the track field, that much Bertholdt knew. Reiner lived close enough to enable a constant exchange of visits, playdates, but far enough that Bertholdt didn't really know much about his family when he wasn't around. 

The two of them grew up together; a childhood spent hand-in-hand, attached at the hip, never one without the other. What could be done was done together. Bertholdt felt like this was all he ever needed, like he knew Reiner inside and out, like he and Reiner were meant to be.

They spent kindergarten together, went to first grade together, then second grade, then third grade. The years kept flowing into one another, and before either of them knew it they were about to start Middle School. 

What happened then had many causes, Bertholdt mused. Changes, curious hands wandering, investigating behind bushes, hushed conversations of two souls linked arm in arm. Not mature enough for love to turn into lust, and thus loving even fiercer. A love so pure, so clear, so innocent. 

Not for him. 

August of his 12th summer saw him running down the street to join Reiner in watching a blue moving truck slowly making its way to a white house, the house next to Reiner's, the one he had been talking about non-stop for the past week. Their street rarely saw newcomers, so the entire ordeal was extremely exciting. 

Out of the front of the moving truck jumps a boy - brown hair disheveled, ratty jean shorts in tatters around his knees. Big brown eyes and button nose, smile stretched goofily across his entire face. 

"Marcel!" Reiner cries out as he runs to meet the new kid, hugging him tight like a long lost friend, and 'Marcel' answering in return, and suddenly Bertholdt feels unspeakably alone. 

Marcel, and his big brother Galliard, got settled in the same week. Their mother and father were welcomed into the neighborhood and soon enough everything seemed to go about its merry way.

Except it didn't. Something changed. Bertholdt could feel it in his bones. 

It started with Reiner talking about Marcel when the two of them met up. No matter how much Bertholdt asked, Reiner seemed to prefer to be either with Marcel or with Bertholdt, never with the two of them together. Steadily excuses started to come up; Marcel this, Marcel that, Promised this, Is gonna show me that...

It didn't help that in middle school, Bertholdt was placed in a separate class from Marcel and Reiner. The less he saw them, the closer they seemed to grow. Marcel moved in in August, but by November he had managed to conquer Reiner all by himself. When Bertholdt saw them on campus, they were laughing, heads ducked low and together, hushed conversations interrupted (or aided?) by roughhousing that seemed just a touch too comfortable; too private to intrude on. 

Had Bertholdt inquired, and had he had the maturity to understand, he would have found out that Reiner's mom, who was too busy working her job to pay much attention to her child, had broken up with yet another lover, who threatened to sue her for reasons no one but she was aware of. And although the woman had enough sense to keep it under wraps, the stress and anger of the situation took physical form in liquor bottles lining the kitchen sink.

And had Bertholdt, or so he later berates himself, really looked at his friend instead of wallowing in self-pity and jealousy, he would have noticed the bruises that seemed to appear just a touch too frequent, the dark skin under the eyes, the matted, duller hair and hungry cheeks. Who could really blame a 12 year old for, on a cold October night, climbing over the garden fence to waddle to a white house and knock on a window with red curtains? Bertholdt understood, later, when he was older and could analyze the situation, that he could not have done much. 400 meters seem a terribly long distance when you're cold and afraid, feeling alone in the world. When your life as you know it is crumbling, why not climb into the first open arms you can find?

And he doesn't blame Reiner for what happened, not now that his father lives three states away, now that he  _understands_. 

It doesn't make anything less painful. 

Come May and Bertholdt wakes up to find the police investigating the area. He gets asked questions, doesn't get his own answered, until he  _does_ and it is the most terrifying moment of his life, because 

_Reiner Braun and Marcel Berwick have been missing for around 62 hours, we have evidence that suggests they ran away; their homes are missing traveling equipment (clothes, toothbrushes, electric boiler, flashlights, sleeping bags, 1 small tent, food, and their bicycles) and the liquor bottles of the Braun household have all been shattered, do you know anything about that?_

Marcel had taken his Reiner, swept him away, and after roll call at school they sneaked out, grabbed their bicycles, and had ridden off on a dusty dirt road leading god-knows-where, so much the police ended up gathering. Bertholdt helped hand out missing posters, helped ask around, but in truth he experienced it all as if through a haze. Reiner, gone. The thought of that, the realization, seemed abstract. The blond had been with him his entire life, why was he suddenly not there?

After 4 weeks of searching the case was given up, and instead Child Services came to investigate the Braun household and its dubious liquor storage, and it got ugly; so unbelievably ugly that half a year later Mrs Braun was driven to the emergency clinic to pump the sleeping pills out of her stomach, and at that point the Hoover family decided to move north to Kansas, so Bertholdt never heard of any Braun ever again. 

 

* * *

 

Unbeknownst to Bertholdt Hoover, Reiner and Marcel made their way west to Arkansas where they ended up working low-grade farm jobs to earn their keep. When Reiner turned 15 (and he was the younger of the two) they bought an old camper and enough gas to get them and their dog (a mutt they picked up the previous summer) all the way to West Virginia where they somehow managed to start a semi-successful local hunting business. 

Eight years later saw them make it to New York, where they both got their GEDs, and were married the following summer under the names Marcel and Reiner Smith.


End file.
